Everyday we encounter communication challenges; little hiccups that can occur when the people we're speaking/texting/emailing with are used to a different communication style than our own. Using the knowledge of DISC and people's unique personalities, we've boiled down some quick tips to help you the next time you find yourself in a communication hiccup.

Every interaction with people, regardless of whether or not there are any words, involves communication. So try applying these tips at home, at work or at the grocery store! Keeping in mind the communication style of the person you're trying to connect with will go a long way in helping them receive your message, loud and clear. ​

It’s been a great year for baseball, if you live in Canada. And now that the Jays are out of the playoffs, there are still some great examples that we can take away from watching this team make their biggest come back of the past 2 decades. Winning isn’t just for sports teams; it can be for Your team too!

1.Your past doesn’t determine your future. At the beginning of this season, it had been over 20 years since The Jays won the World Series, or even made it to the playoffs. But that didn’t matter, because every season is a fresh start; another chance to go all the way. How often do we judge our team by their past failures? Do we ever look at our team with new eyes, or give them the opportunity for a fresh start? Sometimes all that’s needed for a team to succeed is to wipe the slate clean and start anew. You don’t have to wait for a change in management or a shift in staffing – give your team the benefit of a new beginning and see how well they can perform this season.

2.Your team on paper doesn’t always equal your team on the field.The Jays set up their roster to include talented players with a variety of skills. They literally, and figuratively, need to cover all their bases. But building a great roster isn’t unique to their 2015 season, so what makes the difference between a team on paper and a team in the field? Any great sports fan will tell you, it’s ‘heart’. In the corporate world we might call this our team spirit or the culture of our organization. Having employees who can perform their roles well is only one piece of the puzzle; how those members work together as a team is a whole other ballgame, so to speak. If your team spirit is at an all-time low, your team’s performance is unlikely to measure up to playoff standards. Don’t brush off employee engagement or team-building events as an HR-mandated task to check off your list: how your team performs on the field could mean the difference between winning and losing.

​​​3. It doesn’t matter who gets the credit.With a team whose players make millions of dollars each season, The Jays locker room would be an ideal breeding ground for egos to run amok. A pecking order could easily develop, based on who makes the most money, or who brings the most value to the team. In some organizations, we hang our hat on years of service or hours logged at our desks. But if you asked The Jays players “Who was the MVP of your team this season?” they’d probably all have someone different in mind. One person alone didn’t take them to the playoffs. Sure there were some great hits and well positioned catches, but they won each game as a team. Are you encouraging your staff to share their personal wins with their teammates? Or does your group’s performance rely on the mentality of ‘every person for themselves’? When a group begins to share the credit for their success, it’s amazing how much they can accomplish!

4.The further you go, the more fans you’ll gain. Every sports team has their diehard fans – those who cheer them towards success regardless of how well they’re doing each season. What each team also has are even more people who just don’t care – they have no vested interested whether that team wins or loses. But if you spend all of your time and energy convincing the latter group of your potential to win, that doesn’t leave much time and energy for you to play a winning game. Throughout the season, The Jays gained more and more fans. And while they may be referred to as ‘band wagon fans’, these folks added to the celebrations - and the franchise profits - nonetheless! By the end of game 6 against Kansas City, The Jays held the entire nation as their captive audience; millions upon millions of supportive, excited fans, standing behind them and wishing for their success. But if they’d started their season with the primary goal of recruiting fans, rather than practicing and playing the game of baseball, I doubt they’d have made it to the first round of the East Division. Is your team focused on convincing others of their success versus actually working towards succeeding?

5.The further you go, the more fans you’ll gain. Every sports team has their diehard fans – those who cheer them towards success regardless of how well they’re doing each season. What each team also has are even more people who just don’t care – they have no vested interested whether that team wins or loses. But if you spend all of your time and energy convincing the latter group of your potential to win, that doesn’t leave much time and energy for you to play a winning game. Throughout the season, The Jays gained more and more fans. And while they may be referred to as ‘band wagon fans’, these folks added to the celebrations - and the franchise profits - nonetheless! By the end of game 6 against Kansas City, The Jays held the entire nation as their captive audience; millions upon millions of supportive, excited fans, standing behind them and wishing for their success. But if they’d started their season with the primary goal of recruiting fans, rather than practicing and playing the game of baseball, I doubt they’d have made it to the first round of the East Division. Is your team focused on convincing others of their success versus actually working towards succeeding?

6. The team you start with isn’t always the team at the end.If office teams were like sports teams, we’d probably see our employees change roles/teams/companies a lot more frequently. But since most of our teams are not like sports teams, we don’t always get the opportunity to frequently change roles … but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t ever change up our team. There are so many dynamics required to make a team work well, and sometimes, this requires us to change the actual players. Every person on your team should add value – even the newest addition. Consider this; Roberto Osuna - the Blue Jays closer this season, was a rookie who wasn’t even born when the Jays last won the World Series! Who are you overlooking on your team? Which players need to be moved around, in order for everyone to shine?

7. Even when you do it all right – you don’t always win.Even with all these lessons in team building there is no such thing as a guaranteed win. Your team will encounter obstacles and hurdles that will sometimes leave you at a loss. When this happens, just remember that classic line from the movie The Bad News Bears: “…. And another thing - just wait till next year!” And don’t forget lesson #1 (see above!) from our friendly neighbourhood baseball team.

My first year taking dance at university was spent in frustration as we toiled away on the monotony of perfecting our most basic postures and positions. We spent hours a day in technique class, working with partners to correct every minute detail. The boredom eventually passed and frustration began to subside, once I realized the value of returning to rudimentary lessons in order to solidify the foundation of our movement.

Lesson #1:Sometimes you have to go back to move forward.​

I wasn’t at the top of my class in terms of my technique, but working in pairs to assess our classmate’s form allowed me to develop a keen eye for physical detail as well as diplomacy when delivering corrections. While I don’t spend much time on dance technique these days, the 2nd - and more essential- lesson I gleaned from this time in school continues to be relevant today: Someone else can always see your flaws more readily than you can.

This is where the power of having a mentor or coach comes into play; in dance, in your career or in life. A coach or mentor can see the bigger picture and offer a different perspective to your own. This increased perspective is what allows us to improve ourselves and reach the next rung on the ladder towards our goals.

Many organizations have mentorship programs available for the purpose of growing yourself within your career. While some people may have a manager who is also their mentor, this scenario is unlikely as they fill 2 very different needs within the organization. If your place of work doesn’t offer a mentorship program, take time to seek out a mentor for yourself. Find someone you can trust to deliver honest and useful feedback, hold you accountable to your goals and offer advice when deciding on next steps. This kind of partnership can stay with you, as the foundation to lifelong learning, wherever your career takes you. Which brings me to my final lesson of my education in dance, lesson #3 …

​There are always greater lessons to be learned, outside of just the activity at hand.

​At 18, struggling through my university education, I didn’t know that my experience there was preparing me for life beyond the dance world. Similar to this, you might not realize that the professional development being offered at work can serve you in more places than just the office. Employers care about developing you as an employee, and that’s a great thing. But when it comes to other aspects of your life as a parent, spouse, neighbour, sports coach, volunteer, or community leader, YOU have the opportunity to transfer your work skills and apply them to the benefit of yourself and those around you.

Being in the position of helping people with their own personal development, I’m inclined to offer a biased opinion, that the value of investing your time and money into personal development pays off in spades! Maybe your ROI comes in the form of a promotion at work, or maybe it comes from healthier, happier relationships with family and friends ... what if the only outcome was an unwavering confidence in yourself and your ability to learn new things. Wouldn’t that alone be worth it? We live in the information age, which at times, can be daunting and even overwhelming. But if we allow ourselves to take advantage of the wealth of knowledge available to us, we might surprise ourselves with how much we could learn and grow.

"The value of a college education is not the learning of factsbut the training of the mind to think."~ Albert Einstein

Why A Blog?

Our blog articles touch on topics of personal & professional growth. We hope they'll be a resource for your continued learning, in between your training sessions with us, or as an introduction for those who've yet to experience our training programs.